


Old-Fashioned

by dith



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Hits You In The Feels, M/M, Name Your Favorite 1940s Movie Actor, Tony/Steve Shippers Are Gonna Kill Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dith/pseuds/dith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with simple fascination on Tony's part - fascination with Steve's private life, which turns out to be rather different that Tony expected. Steve makes it serious, because he's a serious guy.</p><p>NOTE: Hardcore T/S shippers for whom this is an OTP and only Happily Ever Afters are acceptable might not enjoy this one. Just sayin'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old-Fashioned

"You _so_ need to get laid."

As soon as Tony said it, as he and Rogers stood toe-to-toe not-quite-shouting at each other, he saw Rogers' eyes narrow and he knew.

"You _are_ getting laid. Frankly a guy who's getting some should really be able to relax more."

"Stark, this is not about me. This is about your failure to execute a tactical plan with your team. When you change the plan mid-stride, you throw everyone off. _Everyone's_ in danger because of your decision."

"Everyone would have been a lot more in danger if I'd let that drone get away."

"Everyone was vulnerable to air attack while you were chasing it because you weren't where you were supposed to be." Steve's feet were planted and he was really the one who was refusing to shout. It was only because Tony never shouted, he simply managed to raise his voice until he could talk over everyone else. Steve had learned to play Tony's game in that arena, Tony noticed, and that made him wonder what else Steve had learned from him.

"So tell me more about this sudden eruption of a love life. Because I know you don't have dates here at the tower."

"We're talking about your inability to fight as part of a team, Stark, not my personal life."

"Oh, so you're not in love then."

Steve's fists clenched at his sides and then he let his head fall back with a sigh. "I'm hitting the showers."

"Makes sense, you do smell kind of battle-funky, that suit really needs better air flow, you want me to work on that?" Tony called after Steve as Steve stalked out of Tony's lab.

But really, Tony thought as he watched the door close, where was Steve getting some?

###

Tony thought about throwing this out to the general team but for some reason he wanted to solve it himself. The mystery of Cap's cock, he labelled it in his head - and some of Jarvis' more confidential files. Where was it getting some action?

He stepped up surveillance on the rest of the Avengers' quarters, because privacy didn't interest him, but it really didn't seem as though it was any of the rest of the team. He focused on Natasha, because Steve was if anything the most white-bread man Tony had ever met, but that turned out to be just frustrating, because mostly what he caught was an awful lot of footage of a naked Natasha showering, exercising, and eventually masturbating in bed, and that just gave Tony hard-ons that he had to deal with himself - by himself, since Pepper was often away at crucial times when Tony had time to watch secret footage of his so-called friends.

Then Natasha discovered one of his cameras, and that caused an extremely painful interview - painful in the literal sense, and it was a while before Tony's ball sac felt quite itself again - and Tony really had to cut that back.

But he already knew that Rogers wasn't sneaking into Natasha's quarters to get some late at night, nor was she visiting him. Not unless she crawled entirely through air ducts and met him in some utility closet somewhere, and that sounded, well, vaguely hot but extremely improbable. Natasha liked her comforts and besides, Clint was often clogging up the air ducts.

And Cap didn't seem like the kind of a guy to do a girl up against the wall in a closet on a repeated basis. Not and show no signs of it in public.

Because there were no signs in public. The Captain was always unfailingly polite, even gallant, to Natasha Romanov, the secret agent, and to Black Widow his teammate. He definitely treated her as a woman - he never opened doors for Bruce - but he also treated her as a capable fighter and never like glass, nor yet like the love of his life.

Which was the interesting question. If Cap was doing some chick who _wasn't_ the love of his life, when and how had he met her, and what did it mean to him?

###

He tried to get at some answers with his patented methods of badgering.

When Steve had to go to some public relations event SHIELD had arranged for him - most often him, because he was by far the most reputable-looking, the most popular, and the least likely to break something in public - Tony would tease him. "You taking that blonde you saved from being crushed during the alien invasion? You definitely have her number. You do have it, right? Because she's sent it to the tower like three times along with those flowers, and if you can't find it I'm pretty sure I have it around here somewh -"

"Fury is sending a SHIELD agent to accompany me," Steve said tightly, pulling together his cuffs and smoothly sliding in a cufflink.

"How come I don't get assigned SHIELD booty? I get a security detail when I go to these things, and none of them are pretty women."

"I'm not sure if it's a woman or a man."

"So," Tony wiggled his finger in the air while he ate blueberries on the couch, watching Steve slide on his tuxedo jacket, "does that matter to you? Whether it's a woman or a man?"

"Captain Rogers, the car is waiting downstairs," Jarvis interjected.

"Thank you, Jarvis, don't wait up," Steve said lightly, heading for the elevator.

"I'll wait up! I want a full report! Always use a condom! And don't get roofied!" Tony called as Steve's back retreated.

In the elevator Steve let out a sigh, let his head thump backwards onto the elevator wall. "Jarvis, what's roofied?"

###

"Steve's getting some and I don't know where."

Bruce barely looked up from his screen though he did smile, a little. "And this is my problem why?"

"I'm just sharing. You know, sharing is caring. I'm a caring guy."

"I don't know where he's getting any either, if that's what you're asking. I didn't even know he was getting any, to use your phrase."

"What's wrong with that phrase? It denotes exactly what I mean."

"So..." Bruce admitted to himself that Tony had managed to distract him, sat back a little and turned to look at Tony, who was fiddling with - what was that? 

Bruce's brow furrowed. "Does that explode?"

"What, this? No, not yet." Tony looked at the thing in his hands. "Should it?"

"Anyway, why don't you elucidate a little."

"He's not dating, because we would have met the girl. He's not sleeping with Natasha. I know he's getting some, but I don't know when or where or whom."

"Why is this interesting to you?" Bruce asked mildly.

"What, it's not interesting to you? I thought you guys were friends. Aren't we all friends now? One big happy Avengers love-in?"

"You haven't asked me where I'm getting any."

"You aren't, I can tell."

Bruce sighed. 

"Let's start again. How do you know Steve is getting sex?"

"I was telling him he needed to get laid, and his face said it all. He's getting laid. Somewhere."

"And it would never occur to you to just think, good for Steve, and let it go. Because it's good for Steve's mental and physical health, and actually none of our business."

"No, that didn't occur to me."

"So, how long have you had a crush on him?"

"I'm not talking to you any more," said Tony, pointing the thing in his hands at Bruce, and walking out.

###

Tony was observant but usually only in the moment. He didn't devote a lot of time to long-term study. Either the properties and capabilities of a substance, part, or person became immediately apparent to him, or they didn't. People like Pepper seemed overly complex to Tony, and he didn't even try to follow what they were saying from day to day, much less build up any larger factual or theoretical picture of them. There were too many things to do in the day, and all of them were more interesting than that.

So even he found it uncharacteristic of himself that he caught himself watching Steve Rogers from time to time and making mental notes, mental notes that were more than momentary observations and which he somehow managed to file in his brain under long-term storage.

There was nothing, absolutely nothing slapdash about Steve. From his perfectly pressed pants (which he still pressed himself, though there were plenty of people in the Avengers tower who could do that for him) to his brutally effective upper cuts delivered to a punching bag, Steve did nothing clumsily, impulsively, or half-assedly.

In a battle situation he deployed his team with exactly the right balance between caution and aggression and never, ever put anyone in unnecessary danger. Not passers-by, not a team member, not even an enemy if it could be avoided.

Tony kept watching.

Steve took several New York papers still in paper form, and he read them in the mornings over a balanced breakfast. Every day. He put his shoes in the same place in his room at night every night, and on Sunday nights he polished them. There were a lot of habits left over from the military there, as well as a deep-seated need for order and structure.

No wonder Cap couldn't stand him, Tony thought absently while staring at Cap's chin.

"Did you want something, Stark?" Steve tried to keep his tone light but he sounded slightly irritated, as a man might be who was trying to watch movies - "Notorious", it appeared from the screen, as Tony's eyes flicked over to catch Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant arguing in black and white.

"Do you shave?" Tony asked.

"Huh?"

"Do you have to shave? I just wondered. That's a clean chin. But you're so blond, I'm thinking the stubble might not show that much. I was wondering if you have to shave twice a day to keep it that clean, or just once, or every other day, or if you just don't have to shave any more because the super soldier serum includes grooming, which might actually be a feature of a super soldier."

Steve just looked puzzled at Tony.

"You know." Tony waved his hand around his own face. "Always ready to look ship-shape in uniform, even in the midst of battle. Or lost behind enemy lines. For a week. Or whatever."

"Ship-shape is for the Navy, Tony," Steve said mildly and turned back to his movie.

"Really. You don't intend to give me one personal little detail. Not even the shaving thing."

Steve looked back up. There was something in his eyes Tony couldn't quite read. "I shave every morning, Tony, and before I go out if I'm going out at night."

"See, was that so hard?" but Tony didn't feel as flip as he made the words sound. It was something personal, like Steve was a friend, and it felt good to hear it, good to have something handed to him without him having to steal it through observation.

Steve flickered a smile at him, went back to watching his movie.

###

When Cap woke up after a battle, covered in blood he hoped was his and amid piles of smoking rubble, Tony was sitting on one of the piles in his Iron Man suit, mask up, watching.

"You know," Tony said by way of greeting, "if there's someone you should notify if you, you know, get sick or something, you can just tell Jarvis. He won't tell me. I mean you can tell him not to tell me. And I'll tell him too and then he'll do it. Make a call for you if you can't, that sort of thing."

"Thanks, Tony," said Captain Rogers, sitting up gingerly, sighing as he felt everything in his body falling back into place, painfully. "I've already done that."

"And he didn't tell me? That sorry excuse for a loyal AI. I'm going home to reprogram him."

Steve just shook his head.

###

"It's nowhere in walking distance, but he doesn't take a car that often," Tony mused out loud.

"Are you still on this? Seriously? It's been months. You must have it bad." Bruce shook his head and flicked Tony the results of the latest materials tests.

"It's a problem to be solved, I like solving problems. HEY! Who put titanium in this alloy? I didn't specify titanium. Dummy, was that you?"

"Don't you have enough to do with dating Pepper and... whatever else you do with your free time?"

"Yes, I like Pepper, I love Pepper in fact, but as you may have noticed we are not married, in fact Pepper made me sign a very detailed document about non-exclusivity and my responsibilities regarding medical testing on a detailed scheduled and - What does that even have to do with this?" Tony seemed to come back to himself.

"This the titanium alloy or this the Steve Rogers crush?"

"I did not say I have a crush on Steve Rogers. That is a ridiculous leap of logic that is beneath you, Doctor Banner. Beneath you like this wooden floor is beneath me providing a lot more flexible structure than a titanium alloy, why would I even taint this thing with titanium? What has happened here?"

"Maybe you were distracted while you were thinking about Mister Tall, Blond and Handsome."

"Are you twelve? Are you secretly twelve? Is that what the other guy has done to you, and you've been hiding it successfully all this time?"

"I'm not the one who put titanium in the casing alloy for the materials test," Bruce pointed out, tapping his screen.

"Prove it," said Tony, exploding his and filling up all their screens with their materials testing history for the last three weeks.

"Burden of proof is on the prosecution, the innocent are innocent until proven guilty," Bruce reminded him, shoving the testing results off his screen and going back to what he was doing.

###

Steve left the breakfast room with a coffee mug in one hand and the paper in the other, and Tony watched him go.

Natasha nudged Clint with her foot.

Clint glared at her.

As Tony turned back to the table Natasha said, as if it had just occurred to her, "Why don't you just tell him how you feel?"

"What?" Tony's eyes zipped to her like laser-guided missiles, which just underscored how unfocused and far away they'd been a moment before. "Tell who what, why?"

"Just thought it would make things easier." Natasha shrugged as she sipped her tea. Under the table Clint's foot moved as if to gouge her right below the kneecap, but her leg had already moved out of the way by the time his foot got there.

"I'm just thinking."

"We've seen you think before," Natasha put in, but didn't elaborate further.

"What do you suppose causes a guy like that to get up every day, shave the same way, put on the same unimaginative clothes, and go save the world?"

"He likes to save the world. He lives to save the world." Clint was smearing toast with crushed banana and peanut butter, which he then shoved into his mouth, making it tough for him to contribute to the conversation.

Natasha wrinkled her nose ever so slightly. She bit the tip off a strawberry and chewed it.

"Yeah, I get that, he's a ... a Leave it to Beaver left-over, perfect house, perfect... wife, do the job, dinner on the table. I get that."

"Leave it to Beaver was like fifteen years after Steve got frozen, Tony," Clint said, slightly muffled around his mouthful of food. Suddenly he jumped, as if something under the table had bitten him. He narrowed his eyes at Natasha.

But Tony wasn't paying attention. "Fifteen years... hmmm..."

He left without another word.

Natasha pointed her strawberry at Clint. "You're about to disqualify yourself from the pool."

He licked peanut butter off his teeth. "You started it. 'Why don't you just tell him how you feel?' You're lucky I don't rat you out to Banner right now."

"So why don't you?" The ghost of a smile shimmered around one corner of her mouth as she took another sip of tea and her eyes met his.

"You know damn well why I don't. I don't trust that guy. He's sitting at the center of both betting pools and is probably planning to rake in the money from both."

"We're not supposed to know about the pool they're running on whether or not we're sleeping together."

"Thor's as transparent as a sheet of glass. 'This envelope is for our friend Doctor Banner. A gift,' my ass."

Natasha just grinned at him.

###

"Jarvis, top twenty movies from 1922 to 1942 by box office, inflation adjusted," Tony said in his shop as he settled down in his seat.

"Sir, the prototype of the --"

"Movies first, Jarvis, priorities, keep up with me now."

"Yes sir." Jarvis scrolled a list of titles on the screen.

Tony's brow knit as he studied them. Not as informative as he wanted. "You know what? Give me ... the total list of movies shown at movie theaters within a ten-block radius of Steve Rogers' childhood addresses, in order of box office gross, highest first."

He grunted as a new list of titles started to scroll. 

"Let's focus in on 1932 to 1937..."

###

Two days later Tony emerged, rumpled and vaguely smelly, and bumped into Pepper on his way to his room.

"Pepper, Jesus Christ, do you know what movies were like prior to the enforcement of the Hays Code?"

"No," she said, blinking, rocking back a little on her sky-high heels and peering into his face, "I can't say that I do."

"I had no idea. I mean really, no idea."

"Well, that's because you never watch anything made before 1968, but what brought this on?"

"These movies in the thirties, Pep, they were insane. Women getting pregnant, getting jobs, getting jobs while pregnant, having sex before they got married, deciding never to get married at all, shacking up with a guy - and they couldn't cook. Not one of them could cook."

"I can't cook, Tony," said Pepper bemusedly.

"I know, I know, I just... I thought that it was like a national law or something before 1960, that women had to cook and clean house or something."

"World War II changed a lot of things, I guess," and suddenly Pepper's face relaxed, like she understood something. "I mean, home life was very different after the Depression or even before it."

"So what would a guy then expect from a woman back then?"

"I guess it would depend on the guy, right?" she said patiently. She opened a folder she carried in one hand. "Before I go I need to get your thoughts on - "

"Right. Right." He pointed at her, then walked off with his usual quick stride.

"Where are you going, Tony? I have a number of projects I need to run past you - "

"Great, great. Going to shower, then sleep, come with - " Then Tony turned around, looked at Pepper as if seeing her there for the first time.

He grinned. "When did you get here?"

She sighed and shook her head.

###

Late at night Tony was staring at a wireframe diagram, and his mind just drifted.

He was very familiar by now with Steve Rogers' face, his clothes, his body, his style. He still knew almost nothing about how Steve Rogers thought. The guy kept his cards close to his chest in the oddest ways.

He could picture Steve with his arms around a woman, maybe a woman in a long diaphanous robe and kitten slippers, like one of those silver screen goddesses from the 30s. But try as he might, he couldn't picture Steve doing anything else except maybe sitting down to hearty dinner while said screen goddess put on a poufy skirt and pearls and sat down across the table from him and listened to him talk about his day. He knew the timelines weren't right, but he couldn't seem to manage to associate anything else with Steve.

"Jarvis, let's solve this once and for all, just put a data tail on Steve Rogers, let me know where he goes when he --"

"Sir, I have instructions _not_ to follow your instructions in any matter regarding surveillance on Captain Steve Rogers on file from Doctor Bruce Banner, from Captain Rogers himself, and from Ms. Potts. You did say that Ms. Potts' instructions should trump anyone else's, sir."

"I didn't mean _mine_."

"Nonetheless, sir, there is a preponderance of opinion on the other side of the issue, if you see my meaning, sir."

Tony pointed at a speaker. "I can make you into a toaster, Jarvis. I mean it. A programmable toaster oven. Or a vaccuum cleaner. Or a car. Hey, Jarvis, would you like to be a car? We'd have to get you some serious aftermarket defense system upgrades, like KITT."

"I've been a car, sir. Sir, while it would not be wise to institute surveillance proceedings outside the Tower, I can inform you that Captain Rogers has just left the building, on foot, heading east."

"When were you a car?" Tony muttered as he raced for the door.

###

It was a dark and rainy night. When Steve got out of the cab, he turned up the collar of his overcoat, and pulled his hat a little farther down over his face, partly to shield himself from the rain, and perhaps partly to hide his features.

Tony felt like a kid playing games, ducking into doorways, feeling the water sluice down his cheeks and drip off his nose as he managed to keep Steve in sight, maybe half a block, almost a block ahead.

On one of the residential streets, with the tight Queens houses packed together like sardines in a can and the narrow sidewalk, he wished he had more covering himself. It wasn't because he felt cold, though he was wet to the skin. He didn't want to look obvious, even though he was following Captain America down the street in the rain. He grabbed a cheap paper from the top of a pile in a trash can, already soaked, and held it over his head as if he were a regular pedestrian caught out in the rain.

As if.

He had to duck around a fire hydrant, and he lost sight of Steve. Hurrying a little to catch up, he almost tripped on one of the uneven squares of pavement, and watched his feet a little more as he hurried towards the corner.

He never got there. A hand shot out of one of the doorways as he passed and grabbed his arm.

Reflexively he pulled the other arm up and around to guard his face, looking frantically for incoming fists or weapons even as he was hauled into the not-quite-an-alley between houses.

To Steve.

Tony's mouth gaped open as he looked up at Steve's profile, water droplets clinging to his perfect cheeks under the brim of the hat.

"Jesus, you look like a Cary Grant movie," Tony rasped as Steve half-whispered, half-shouted in his face, "What are you doing following me, Stark?"

"I wanted to see where you were going," Tony said simply, and Steve dropped his arm. Tony flexed it; there were going to be some fingerprint-shaped bruises there, he thought.

"Go home, and leave me alone." It gritted through Steve's teeth.

"What, like for the rest of tonight, or forever?" Tony asked immediately.

Steve drew in a breath as though he were going to answer. He looked down at Tony, brown head bare in the rain, hair stuck to his head and water rivulets running down the side of his nose, through his beard, over his lips, dripping off his chin.

Something in Steve seemed to give way, like a broken rubber band. Tony went from thinking Steve was really about to haul back and punch him in the face to thinking Steve might possibly cry. Tony found it incredibly disconcerting, and he was already disconcerted.

"Tony."

Tony knew Steve had used his given name before, but this sounded fresh to him, like it had never happened quite like this.

"Tony," said Steve, hands falling at his sides, "what do you want?"

"To see if it's a guy," Tony responded without thinking.

Steve huffed out a puff of air and one side of his mouth almost seemed to smile. He looked up and out, as if he wanted to shake his head the way Bruce did, the way Pepper did, and Tony was suddenly sick of no one taking him seriously. But Steve just said, "Do you need cab fare home?"

"Are _you_ honestly asking _me_ if I need cab fare home?"

Steve touched the brim of his hat, for all the world like he was bidding Tony a gallant farewell. "Good night, Tony."

He only made it about two steps away before Tony, who hadn't moved, raised his voice enough to say, "If it isn't a guy, do you think it could be?"

And when Steve turned around, mouth open in surprise, Tony was suddenly there, pushing into his space, gripping the lapels of that could-have-been-1945 overcoat and pressing his wet, open lips to Steve's.

Steve let out a sound of astonishment and Tony just swallowed it, moving his lips to kiss Steve more thoroughly. But Steve backed up, freeing his mouth, at least, from Tony's grasp and looked down at Tony with wide-open blue eyes full of amazement.

Tony looked back. He couldn't read anything there.

"Hell of a poker player, Cap," he said as he let go of Steve's coat, backed up a step.

"Good _night_ , Tony," Steve said firmly, and turned and walked away.

###

"Jarvis, can you triangulate a specific address from Steve Rogers' phone's GPS right now?" Tony said, his voice only slightly muffled as he walked in to his quarters pulling a dripping wet t-shirt over his head.

"I can, sir, but if I may, I note that your core temperature is slightly lower than - "

"Yeah yeah, I know it, I'm going to have a hot shower, jerk off, go to bed, I promise, but this is important. Do you know the house, do you know the _room_ that Steve Rogers is in right this very minute?"

"Well, not his person, sir, but his phone, yes sir."

"Call security, code blue, and tell them to install some cameras there tomorrow that will give us an overall view of -"

"Sir, you yourself programmed me to notify you when you were about to break a local, state, or federal statute. I am required to inform you that you are about to break the following laws..." 

The list scrolled down the nearest screen and Tony paused, looking at it.

"Potential jail time?"

Jarvis listed it.

"Legal costs?"

Jarvis listed those too.

"Worth it," and Tony continued on to the bathroom, wet clothes snapping as he peeled them off and threw them away from his body, the arc reactor glowing blue in a sea of skin that had more of a bluish tint than pink.

"May I suggest that you at least sleep on it, sir, as those teams will not be able to mobilize before the morning anyway?"

Tony stood in his room, naked, alone, staring off into the distance.

"Yeah, okay," he said and walked into the bathroom.

###

"You look glorious, Barbara," Steve said with a smile and a bob of his head as he stretched his feet toward the fireplace, his hand curled around a tumbler of scotch.

She smiled, her lips dark red disappearing behind a smoothly curled curtain of dark, sleek hair, and came to fetch the glass.

"More?" she asked as she took it away.

"No thank you," he said, his voice getting deeper as she leaned over him, her breasts in the silk robe pressing against his chest as she set the tumbler on a side table before settling in his lap.

"So are you going to tell me why you were late, and so upset?" she said, curling her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck as her arms found their place on his shoulders.

"Nothing important. A man - a friend," he seemed reluctant to add. "Slowed me down."

"Did he have a problem he needed your help with?"

"I really have no idea." 

He looked up into her eyes, green and brown and gold mixed into bright flecks, always with a touch of humor. He loved that about her eyes.

"He kissed me," Steve told her without planning to - it just came out.

She raised her eyebrows. "Well, well. Did he know you were coming here?" she asked, and the glimmer of a smile moved from her eyes to encompass her mouth too.

"I think he did."

"He knows about me?"

"I think the general idea, though I doubt he knows who you are."

"He knows about our arrangement?" She leaned over to rub Steve's shoulders where they joined his neck.

He groaned a little, tried to relax. "I have no idea what he knows or doesn't know. Anyway, it's none of his business."

"If he's in love with you, he may feel like it's his business," she said with a quirk of her head.

"I don't think that guy knows how he feels from one minute to the next about anything," Steve grumbled, leaning forward a little to let her fingers do their work.

"Well, but seriously, Steve." She used her thumbs to tilt his face up to look into hers. "This started because you didn't have anyone, remember? And I was glad to help - I always am, I always will be. But you remember what I said to you that first night. A man like you can certainly find someone if he wants to."

"Find someone - " Steve shook his head, closed his eyes so they weren't looking into hers, turned his face into her palm. "I found someone, Barbara, I lost her. I need this, I need what you give me --" here he spread his hands around her waist, around the belt tied around her robe, "but I don't need to pretend it's a romance, or that I'm looking for love. My chance for that is about seventy years in the past."

"Every day's a chance for that, Steve," she scolded him, sitting back a little. "You don't really need my services. You just find it easier than finding yourself someone you care about."

"I care about you."

She smiled, her teeth even and perfect. "You care about me as a trusted and loyal employee," she said lightly, and when he started to protest she placed her hand over his lips. "An employee, Steve, because that's what it means when you pay someone for services rendered. I'm an employee. But someday, you're going to have to find someone for not just your body, but your heart. Wouldn't you like a girlfriend - or a boyfriend - "

"Not a boyfriend, that's not me," he muttered, shaking his head behind her hand.

"I'm not so sure. I don't think it makes as much difference as you think. But I do know that I wouldn't want to keep a client forever. It's not good for you, Steve."

Then he smiled up at her, his broad sunny smile. "You're good for me," he said in a tone that brooked absolutely no contradiction, and rising from his seat with her in his arms as though she weighed no more than a paper doll, he carried her to the bed.

###

When Tony woke up the next morning the sky was clear.

Without preamble he said, "Jarvis, just tell me if it's a woman at that address."

"Yes sir," Jarvis answered him just as quickly, "it is a woman at that address."

"Okay," said Tony. "Okay."

And he got out of bed and went back to work.

###

It was more than a week before he and Steve passed each other in the breakfast room, as it was seldom that schedules happened to coincide. This day they coincided in a big way, as Bruce, Natasha and Clint were all there with their morning ingestible of choice as Tony and Steve nodded at each other, passed each other by on the way to the coffee, and civilly shared the creamer in the middle of the table.

When Steve had left, papers in hand, Bruce turned to look at Tony, and Natasha and Clint pretended they weren't paying attention.

"What?" asked Tony as he stared around at all of them. "Expecting some sort of a show? Sorry, too bad for your betting circle," and then he strutted out.

"How'd he know about the betting?" Clint wondered aloud.

"He's crazy, not stupid," put in Natasha.

Bruce was still watching where Tony had walked out. "You know what? Put another thousand in from me," he said.

###

 _"Where is Thor?"_ yelled Tony as he swerved around a building with about a thousand tiny dart-bomb things on his tail. "I need a lightning god and I need him now!"

"Are those things electrical?" asked Captain America from the ground as he and Black Widow ducked behind a half-demolished wall and Hawkeye exploded another cloud of the things with a detonating arrow.

"They're not biological," huffed Tony as he shot straight up in an attempt to outrun them. "HULK!"

Bruce Banner launched himself from the SHIELD airship that had brought them to the battle scene and the Hulk landed on the attacking aircraft, the mother ship to all the unstoppable dart swarms, began tearing through its outer hull with his bare hands.

"Uh oh," said Cap as the swarm that was following Tony suddenly peeled off and headed back toward the Hulk, as did the two swarms they could see in the near distance that the mother ship had already deployed and which had already shredded one of the Waikiki beach hotels and were working their way through two more. The tiny dart-things seemed to go through concrete and glass as if they were paper and after a sufficient number of passes, the buildings, as riddled with holes as a sweater attacked by moths, lost structural integrity and began to collapse.

"Iron Man, get me up there," and Tony swooped down to grab Cap by the costume even as he was arguing. "Captain, you're a lot smaller than the big green guy."

"I've got to help keep them off him. You should too." And Captain America grabbed on to the Hulk's back, arm around his throat, and used his shield to turn back the dart-things as they attempted, and occasionally succeeded, in flying through the Hulk's flesh.

The Hulk's scream was like a sonic thunderclap, and Iron Man swallowed even as he released as many near-range missiles as he could to explode as many of the dart-bombs as possible. Captain America, clinging to the Hulk's back, used his shield like a fan, turning away what could have been annoying little insect things except that they were harder than steel and capable of flying right through the Hulk's flesh.

And the Captain's, Tony noted as two went right through Cap's leg and one through his arm, but he kept on defending the Hulk even as his red blood splashed the green skin.

"Let me - "

"Stay back," said Captain America, still in command of himself and the situation, "the Hulk is bleeding and the radioactivity won't hurt me but it could hurt you."

On the ground Black Widow had ripped a steel fence from its moorings and bent it into a cage over herself and Hawkeye, who kept shooting through the mesh. "Hang on," she told him, and when he withdrew his arrow, she electrified the steel with her taser.

Which caused the dart-bombs to sizzle, snap, and fall out of the air whenever they tried to touch it.

"I'll say again, we're short a lightning god here - I know I just had one, where did I put him?" asked Tony, desperately detonating blasts attempting to create a three hundred and sixty degree shield around the Hulk, who was well through the hull of the mother ship, and Captain America.

"My apologies, friend," boomed Thor, his bulk suddenly appearing heading down, very _fast_ down, and he hit the ground like a meteor. The beach sand flew in all directions like an explosion itself and when it cleared Thor was standing in the middle of the crater, pointing Mjolnir up. Immediately Mjolnir started to crackle. "The ship's master was hiding very far up, above the clouds, and would not be brought to heel. He has escaped but no longer threatens us."

The gathering charge flashed and thundered out of Mjolnir in a thousand directions, and then, after just three heartbeats, in a thousand more.

The uncountable flickering miniature lightning strokes batted the rest of the dart-things out of the air and left them smoking on the ground.

The Hulk roared in triumph as his hands located something critical towards the heart of the mother ship. It sizzled itself, then screamed what sounded like almost a mechanical scream before bursting into flame.

Just before it exploded the Hulk jumped off, still with Captain America against his body.

Iron Man swooped in and grabbed Captain America's belt - the finest Stark technology, extremely comfortable, extremely strong - peeled the Captain off the Hulk and zipped him out of the blast radius just as the mother ship ... exploded, scattering pieces which fell on the Avengers down on the beach and on the Hulk flying spread-eagled in the air just before he landed on the ground next to his teammates.

"I'll take you down," Iron Man told Captain America and made a wide circle towards the ground, trying to keep himself and the suit between the flying debris and the Captain, even as the Hulk's landing made a second large splash in the sand.

"Careful," said Captain America as Iron Man lowered them both to the ground, standing upright on his repulsors. "The Hulk's blood is everywhere."

"And yours," said Iron Man, turning him loose as soon as they were on the ground. "Oh look, and mine," he said, pointing to where one of the dart-bombs had gone clean through the suit, and through his leg.

###

Tony was limping around the workshop when Steve paid him a visit later that night.

"Great," Tony said brightly when Steve came in. "Let me show you the prototype I'm working on, it's a very low range EMP emitter that I can load into the barrels on the suit that are already fitted for missiles of this caliber - "

"I thought you didn't carry EMP weapons because you were afraid of disabling the suit," said Steve, his face serious above his white t-shirt, looking down at the glowing wireframe diagrams on Tony's array of screens.

"I just have to make sure that when they fly that way, I go some other way," said Tony, waving his hands to indicate flight in two separate directions simultaneously. "You know, like us."

Steve closed his eyes, let out a breath. "I came to see how your leg was doing."

"Bandaged up, and I am not going to show you until it's a nifty scar, because there's nothing to look at but the bandages and hey, you've seen those before." Tony pointed to where his jeans had been ripped up the side and were flapping open, the bandage white against his reddened skin revealed by the edges of the black denim.

Steve dropped to one knee, put out a hand to examine the bandage, ran a fingertip along the skin around it. "I see the decontamination for the radioactive blood wasn't fun either."

"Hey, if you can take it, I can take it," said Tony, gritting his teeth as he looked down at Steve Rogers kneeling in front of him. "Please -"

Steve looked up.

Tony's eyes burned like coal. "Please don't do that."

"It's not true that you can take it if I can take it. Obviously you don't have my ability to heal quickly - "

"Yeah, well, I have other capabilities, I'll settle for those," said Tony, wrenching himself away from Steve's touch and almost falling over backwards.

Steve grabbed the waist of Tony's ripped jeans, easily kept Tony from falling backwards even as he himself rose smoothly to his feet.

"Yeah?" he said, standing toe to toe with Tony. "Like what?"

Tony bit his lip, but his head snapped back as if this were yet another round of the battle they'd just finished. "I already played my hand, you folded rather than finish the round, I get it, I'm not going to - "

Before he could finish Steve's mouth came down on his, catching Tony with his lips open, and Steve's hand tugged the waistband just a little closer, till their chests met, T-shirt to T-shirt and the reactor pressing into Steve's skin while Steve kissed the hell out of Tony.

No one's reaction time was faster than Tony's. He was shocked to the ground, yes, but he wrapped his arms around Steve's waist and kissed back, for all he was worth.

Steve groaned, and then, without opening his eyes - god he was such a romantic, yes his eyes were closed, Tony checked - he wrapped his arms around Tony's shoulders and pulled him even closer, opened his mouth and gave as good as he was getting.

They were shoving sufficiently hard against each other, body to body, that balance would be a problem, especially with Tony's wounded leg, except that Steve spread his legs a little wider, letting Tony's pelvis come into contact with his, _whoa_ , and the kiss went on and on.

Tony was the one to pull back first, breathing hard, looking at Steve with his eyes closed and muscles straining to get closer, closer.

"Steve."

Steve's eyes flew open. He was inches from Tony Stark's eyes, his face, his mouth.

"Steve, tell me what you want here. You gotta know, I'll do whatever you want."

"Tony - "

"This doesn't have to be complicated. Don't make it a big thing. I can drop to my knees right now, for you, I'm aching to do it. You don't have to back away. Steve." Tony's right hand came up, cupped the side of Steve's head, kept Steve's eyes from moving away. "A blow job from me is going to feel just as good as a blow job from a woman, I promise."

Steve winced. "That's not what I - that's not what you deserve."

"What I _deserve_." Tony reared back, truly surprised. "Are you sure? Because to be honest, to me it sounds like an ice cream cake with sprinkles on my birthday, and yeah, that _is_ what I deserve."

Steve scrubbed one hand over his face. "Can't we sit down?"

"I don't know," Tony's said softly as his eyes flicked down to the bulge in the front of Steve's soft sweatpants, "can you?"

"Please." Steve tilted his head Tony's way, gesturing towards two chairs seated just a few feet apart. "Don't make me carry you."

"Oh _that_ sounds like fun," Tony's eyes fairly shot sparks and the grin looked genuine.

Muttering something that could have been a curse, and wouldn't that be fun because Captain America just didn't curse, Steve grabbed Tony under the knees, not particularly gently, and swept his feet out from under him, carrying him to a chair with one arm under his knees and one under his shoulders.

" _Wow,_ " was all Tony said as Steve deposited him in the chair, then arranged a pile of square somethings under his knee to support it. "You know, that was even more fun than it sounded like it would be. Do it again."

"Do you ever stop teasing?" Steve dropped, looking exhausted, into the other chair.

"You? No. Anyway, why should I? I'm already not going to get what I want, so why not have some fun with it? What, tell me I'm wrong. Look at you, you've already talked yourself out of what could have been a nice simple blowjob. Coward -"

"That's not what I want from you, Tony," Steve said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, well, that's what you say now, but you really should have sampled it before you turned it down so completely."

"That's not the way I do things."

"I know, you don't have sex with men, I get it."

"That's not it at all."

"See, I _knew_ that wasn't it, because that was an impressive hard-on for a guy not turned on. So what is it? I didn't fill out the right Army paperwork or something?"

"No, I - I mean, no, I don't have sex with men, but that's not what I - that's not the - "

Tony let him struggle through a few iterations of the sentence, still uncompleted before finally Tony just spread his hands. "What do you want from me?"

"I don't know." Steve sat, slumped, thighs spread, in his chair, and regarded Tony.

"But a nice, simple, sloppy wet, no teeth, lots of suction -"

"NO."

"Okay, then I need some more to go on here, or you need to get out. Because this is still my lab, my place, and I don't need you coming down here taking up my time confusing me and screwing up my head for no reason."

Steve let his head fall back. He wished there were something to thump it against. Tony often made him feel like thumping his head against something.

"I want to help, I do," said Tony in his most helpful tone. "Like - oh. You don't want to cheat on her."

"On whom?"

"Your girl."

"I don't have a girl."

"Yeah you do, you make regular trips out to - " Tony's brain skipped into overtime. "Oh. _Oh._ Regular trips, you never bring her here, you don't take her out, sex with me isn't cheating on her - you're seeing a _hooker_?"

"That's not a nice word to use for a very nice lady, Tony," and the words were mild but the look Steve shot him was pointed.

"So what do we call her, a prostitute? An escort? A lady of the evening?"

"Well, I call her by her name, which I think is polite. She's a friend, Tony."

"Right, right." Tony's mind was whirring along at mach eight. "I gotta say, I wouldn't expect it of Captain America."

"Wouldn't expect what? I know, I know. You people today, you go out on dates, sleep with people you barely know, and pretend it's all fine with everybody. All theoretically on the way to a long term relationship or maybe not, no one knows for sure, and that's supposed to be all right too."

Steve sat up, forearms leaning on his thighs.

"Well, where I come from that's not what a responsible man does. Sure, a guy needs a physical outlet, but it's not polite to have sex with a lady towards whom you don't have honorable intentions. That's not the right thing to do for anyone."

"What, because nice girls don't?" Tony leaned forward too, interested.

"Of course nice girls do, when they're in love, when they're with the guy they think they're going to spend the rest of their life with. Or - Anyway, of course they do. But I don't think you people have a better system than we did. In my day, if a man needed companionship he made an honorable upfront arrangement for it."

"So in this world, I'm just curious, tell me - what do the women do when they can't find companionship?"

Steve's eyes were serious. "If they can afford it, I'm sure they do the same thing. There was at least one guy in my neighborhood in the old days who was living off of 'presents' from some of the widows on our block and the next block over, and I'm pretty sure everyone knew that was what was going on."

"And if they can't afford it?"

"It's a luxury, Tony, one that simplifies things for people if they can afford it, one I've been able to afford since I woke up here and I seem to have plenty of money but not -" Steve cut himself off.

"But not her." Tony's voice was soft.

Steve didn't answer.

"So you're - you've been trying to figure out what category I'm in, haven't you? Am I the nice girl you try to make an honest woman out of - an image that may cause my head to spin right _off_ , by the way - or am I the prostitute you can do and leave the money on the table and feel okay about walking out on?"

"No, of course not, that's not it at all," Steve said in a rush of breath, laying one hand on Tony's knee.

Tony's mouth felt suddenly dry. "No?"

"No, oh no." Steve shoved himself out of the chair, knelt between Tony's knees, the damaged and the healthy one, and gripped the outside fabric of Tony's jeans around his hips, pulled him close. "You were never the prostitute."

This kiss started just as quick, was just as surprising, ended up just as hungry as the last one, and Tony felt himself swollen and aching in those jeans and wishing Captain America would just rip them off.

"Then _please,_ " he said against Steve's lips.

Steve chuckled but it wasn't a happy sound, his breath coming out in warm puffs against Tony's cheek, forehead leaning against Tony's forehead. "You drive a hard bargain too, Mr. Stark."

"I'm known for my negotiating skills. No wait, I'm not. I'm known for my lack of impulse control. C'mon, let me show you."

"Tony, I can't have a relationship with you. You're on my team, you're under my command in combat, plus you're ridiculously irritatingly horrible too much of the time - "

"You'd be amazed how many people that _has not_ stopped -"

"- relationship, Tony, I said relationship, like you have with Pepper but not, apparently, and if you're not the prostitute - honestly, Tony, are you going to let me make an honest man out of you?"

He pulled away from Tony's lips, curving his hand underneath Tony's chin, rubbing the bristles of Tony's beard against the pad of his thumb.

Tony said nothing.

Steve just smiled. "You always have so many words, Tony. No words for me? Tell me the truth. Are you planning to marry me?"

Tony had to swallow. His mouth, his throat felt dry. "You're talking about _marry_ marry. Like forever after, till death do us part thing."

"Right," Steve said, his eyes wandering over Tony's face, the pad of his thumb still stroking, shaping Tony's chin through the beard, tracing Tony's bottom lip. Then he pulled his hand away and looked Tony in the eyes, and he looked a little sad. "Marry marry."

The drowning sensation Tony felt must be, he thought, akin to that old cliche about seeing your life flash before your eyes. He didn't feel like he was watching his life as a movie; he felt like he was circling a drain, about to wash out to sea, with this moment, right now, as the walls that kept him trapped in the path that he was in.

Tony cleared his throat. "Uh, marriage isn't really my thing, no."

"See, I knew that." Steve sat back on his heels, and Tony's front felt cold. "We already know the most important things, don't we? We don't need to date to get to know each other better, to see if things would work out between us. We already know we're two very different people, with two very different outlooks on life."

Steve's eyes seemed like the bluest blue Tony had ever seen, and Tony couldn't look away. For a second Steve's eyes did seem ninety years old, and a young man all at the same time, and it made Tony feel a little sad too. Steve said, "It's good that we're friends, right? We made it to friends."

Tony felt the sucking pull of the drain he was circling at his feet. "You need to grow up a little, Captain. I didn't offer to date you and I was _not_ the one who brought up marriage. We strike sparks. I just want - wanted to see what kind of a fire they could light."

"Yes. I know. A blowjob. I heard you." Steve's eyes flashed their blue, it felt like into Tony's soul, as Steve rolled back on his heels and stood, and stepped back into his own chair. "Thank you for the offer."

Always so polite. Always so appropriate. Tony wanted to punch him.

"We disagree on what 'grown-up' means," Steve was going on, his body so far away in that other chair. "I don't believe what people tell themselves these days, that they can sleep with whomever they want and it won't matter. I see them doing it, all around, and either they really are in love and as good as married so it doesn't matter, or it's eating away a little piece of them inside every time, until they can't remember who they are or what they wanted their life to be."

Tony's temper snapped as if he'd been swinging on a green branch and it suddenly dropped him to earth. Suddenly Captain America wasn't quite as shiny as a brand new toy just out of reach. Suddenly it was Steve Rogers, stick-up-his-ass twenty-something Steve Rogers, lecturing Tony about things that Tony had come to his own decisions about decades ago. "What about joy, Cap? What about simple expressions of joy?"

"What do you mean?"

"What about the way your heart swells when someone kisses you, what about the way the universe explodes when you come and how grateful you are to the person who just did that for you, hmm? What about investing your time and energy in putting pleasure into the world to counteract just a little of the death and destruction that is, I'm sorry to say, so much easier to find everywhere you look? What about enjoying life and the other people in it instead of walking through the world alone?"

Steve's mouth was open - he looked truly taken aback. "That sounds - good, actually. Good." He started to stand, put his hands on the arms of the chair he was in and squeezed, then thought about it, then changed his mind again and stood up anyway. "It's not all bad, I see your point. But I do know myself. I've waited all my life to fall in love. I don't love you now, not like a lover. But if we slept together, Tony, I would fall in love with you. And you would break my heart."

He took a step toward the door, then looked down at Tony, still sitting in his chair, damaged, wounded Tony. "I think you're braver than I am, Tony," he almost whispered. "Or maybe I'm just smart enough to turn aside before the crash."

"Demonstrably, historically, you're not," and there was a little bite to Tony's response but not much fire.

Steve looked down at his feet, not at Tony. "I would find your argument more persuasive if you didn't seem so alone to me. But you seem to me like one of the loneliest people I've ever met."

Steve stepped to the side, looked back to look Tony in the eyes. "Try to take a little better care of yourself in a fight. Because when this kind of thing happens," he pointed at the bandage on Tony's thigh, "it hurts me too."

He walked to the door, perfect shoulders filling out that perfect T-shirt, perfect ass in those softly draping sweats, a picture not just of physical perfection but of containment, self-control, an orderly universe with orderly operations in it, even though he himself was one of the least likely things ever to have happened.

"Good night," Steve said simply, and let himself out.

Tony just raised a hand in farewell, dazed, and let it drop.

###

When Bruce ran to the group kitchen for a late-night snack, he was surprised to see Steve Rogers sitting over a cup of coffee. Because it was the communal kitchen, and that meant Steve was looking for company, even if his expression indicated thoughts that were very far away.

"Couldn't sleep?" said Bruce in his mild way as he poured himself some iced spiced rooibus tea and put some cut-up carrots and some cashews on a plate.

"No," said Steve, shaking his head slowly, still looking at his cup.

"I suppose coffee doesn't really keep you awake at night," Bruce observed as he sat down perpendicular to Steve's seat.

Steve looked up. "No effect," he said, not bothering to indicate the coffee. "You?"

Bruce quirked half his mouth. "I never ingest anything that could increase my heart rate."

Steve just nodded, went back to staring at the nothing over his coffee cup.

"Maybe I'm missing something, did you, er, want to be alone, really?" Bruce asked a little awkwardly, gesturing with a piece of carrot and then crunching it.

"No, no, just thinking."

"Want to share?"

"Thinking about... the way Tony sees the world."

"Ah." Bruce nodded, looked down at his tea. "And how's that?"

"Just - it's so far from the way I approach the world, it's hard to believe we're the same species. But - " here Steve's eyes came up and met Bruce's, "- he's so convincing, you know? He makes the craziest stuff sound so logical."

"I do know," Bruce nodded, and poked his own plate. 

After a few moments' awkward silence, Steve's chair scraped back. "Sorry, I - guess I need to be by myself after all."

He nodded a goodbye as he took his coffee cup and left.

Bruce waited for several minutes, until he was absolutely sure that Cap was well out of hearing. He put down his carrot stick, sipped his tea, and said in a normal tone of voice to the empty room, "It's because he's right."

###

To Bruce, the way Tony slumped in his chair, eyes staring into nothing, reminded him of a puppet with its strings cut.

It was a particularly unnerving image to associate with Tony Stark, and it fled a second later when Tony looked up with those glittering dark eyes.

"Since you brought two glasses, I assume you're going to have some with me."

Bruce set down the two heavy crystal tumblers he carried in one hand, and the excellent aged bourbon he carried in the other.

"For you, anything," Bruce said lightly and dropped into a chair on the other side of the table.

Tony dispensed the golden brown liquid with the kind of accuracy it took to be able to specify wrenches to the millimeter, and they each sipped their own glass for a while in companionable silence.

Tony finally said, "How'd you know?"

"Saw Steve in the kitchen."

Tony's eyes snapped over in a razory look. "I want to say I hope he looked bad, but I don't really care."

"He looked shell-shocked, to tell the truth."

"And how do I look?" Tony glared at Bruce over the rim of the glass.

"Kind of crushed, actually."

"Nah, it's okay." And as he said it, he looked as if some of the weight floated off his shoulders, and Bruce wished he were able to tell if it were all just an act, or if Tony could actually manifest relief just by voicing it. "It's not like I'm sitting here moping over the fact that he's too good for me, or anything stupid like that. I mean, in a way, sure, he is, but then again I can assure you for a fact that he is _not_."

Bruce just nodded as if Tony were making sense, sipped his drink, trying to mask the fact that he just barely let the hot brown fire of the bourbon touch his tongue.

Tony went on, "No, it's just that - on the one hand just the fact that he knew my dad makes him feel old, you know? Even if he didn't come over all Army-ish and stuff. But when it comes right down to it he's really just a kid."

Bruce shrugged. "I'm not sure how to count. But how old is he? Twenty-five? Twenty-eight?"

"If he weren't, I don't know, forty-odd years older than me, he'd really be fifteen years younger than me. And fifteen years is enough time for the whole world to become completely different."

"I don't know." Bruce swirled the liquor around in the faceted bottom of his expensive crystal tumbler, throwing facets of golden-brown chocolate light through the glass. "You're a completely different person now than you were fifteen years ago, of course. But then in some important ways, you're not."

"You're at least two completely different people than the person you were fifteen years ago."

"I'd make different decisions now because I'm older and wiser," said Bruce, ignoring Tony, "but I still believe the same fundamental propositions that drove me as a younger man. Science is a good way to find things out. Human lives have a value that's immeasurable. That kind of thing."

"The little stuff."

"The little stuff," Bruce echoed, smiling a little down into his drink.

"He's at that age when he knows things to be true, absolutely, that I'm ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent sure just aren't the case at all."

"Experience," offered Bruce.

"But then again, he's _Steve_. He's not just a super-soldier, he's a good guy. He's _the_ good guy. He fought _the_ war. He knows ... things about stuff. Stuff I never really did get a handle on. So of course I have to wonder about his point of view."

"But you're not Steve," Bruce pointed out, pointing a finger from the hand holding his glass.

"No I am not," returned Tony emphatically.

"And... you're not in love with him?" Bruce posed the question delicately, but not looking down into his glass, looking at Tony from under his eyelashes, as if he wanted to be direct but it just didn't square with his habits.

"I don't think so," sighed Tony. "I don't want to be that asshole who just wants the shiny pretty thing for his own, but I probably am that asshole. I don't even know. Not that it matters."

"It matters."

"Yes, of course, you're right. But it doesn't _really_ matter. Because even if I were in love with Steve, and of course he with me, because who could resist -"

"Of course."

"- we would be coming at this whole love thing from such diametrically opposite views that it would be like oranges and hot dogs. I mean, who could share those things at the same time? That sticky orange oil-juice on your fingers, and mustard and hot dog grease - eh, I'm grossing myself out."

"But you would very much have liked to sleep with him."

" _OH,_ yes." Tony drank to that.

"But he's not having any."

"Not any at all."

"So, the more fool he."

"Damn straight the more fool he. Who doesn't want a piece of this?" Tony spread his arms wide, the arc reactor glowing blue in the expanse of his chest.

"Indeed."

"Indeed. He's an idiot." Tony put out his glass for another drink. "Oh - " He almost moved the glass out of the way just as Bruce poured, causing Bruce to make an annoyed sound, but at the last instant he remembered to hold still, but Tony still looked concerned, eyebrows knitting together, as he said, "Hope you didn't lose too much on the betting pool, buddy."

"I didn't lose anything, Tony," murmured Bruce as he poured.

###

The envelope slipped under Natasha's door in the morning just said "Your winnings." She riffled through the bills contained therein, then slipped out her door. There was no one there.

She went to Clint's room, scratched lightly on the door just out of habit of not making noise. He opened it and she immediately slid past him and in.

She held up the envelope.

Clint held up a matching one.

"So Bruce and Thor lost," said Natasha, looking concerned, holding the envelope between two fingertips as if she thought the money might have a contact poison on it or something.

For once Clint had no smart remark. They both turned as one.

They found Bruce already in his laboratory, hair ruffled, relaxed in his chair, flipping through some automated test results, whistling.

Whistling.

"You guys want something?" He looked up at them.

Clint just shook his head and backed out. Natasha preceded him.

They closed the door behind them, took ten steps before either of them spoke.

"What the _hell_ happened last night?" hissed Natasha.

###

Steve knew that everyone on the team was watching him watch Tony, but he couldn't help it. Steve had gotten used to Tony watching _him_ , and now Tony, well, wasn't. It was as if Tony had flipped a switch and just stopped tuning in to the Captain America show. It put Steve off his stride, and he realized how much he'd gotten used to... well, kind of tripping over Tony every time he turned around.

Not that Tony was gone. He was right where he'd always been, right there in the tower, right there on the team. Just not... just not.

Steve wondered for days what he should do to somehow make it up to Tony. He felt like there was something a fellow should do when he turned down a... a gallant invitation well-meant. He remembered soldiers in Germany who'd told him that when a girl turned down a guy's marriage proposal, she sent him a basket. A basket of what, he wasn't even sure. But like, a consolation basket. With baked stuff in it, pretzels and stuff.

But if anyone owed anyone a basket for turning down a marriage proposal, it sure as hell wasn't Steve.

It got to where Steve didn't feel like he was paying full attention some of the time when he really needed to be.

When the bridge collapsed as they approached it, for instance.

"Oh for -" But Captain America didn't swear. He let his shield arm fall, though, the same way the wooden pontoons were tipping and falling into the water, dumping the footbridge over the Shanghai bay into the water. 

"Don't sweat it, Cap, I got this one." And before he knew it Iron Man had swept Captain America off his feet, one arm under his knees, one arm, not particularly gently, grasping his shoulders, and swooped the super-soldier across the bay in a few seconds, dropping him lightly on his feet on the other side before dropping to the ground himself.

"Watch your feet there," he said as Cap stumbled a little bit. "What, did you think you were the only one who could do that trick?"

Something tugged inside Steve and he turned to the gold and red mask. "Tony, I'm --"

Tony's mask released, and there was his face, mobile, alert as always, looking Steve right in the eye as always, with half a grin as always.

Well, not always.

"It's okay, Cap, really," Tony said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle for a moment, as if he could see written on Steve's face the jumble of thoughts he was having.

"No, I should have told you that - you know, maybe in another time, another place -"

"Are you doing Humphrey Bogart right now? Is that Casablanca? I thought you were committed to more of a Clark Gable kind of a thing, a 'frankly my dear I don't give a damn' kind of a speech. But right now you really seem like you're trying to pull a Humphrey Bogart." He cocked his head. "I gotta tell ya, Cap, I'm not sure you can pull it off."

Steve pulled in a breath, felt the familiar sensation of wanting to hit Tony, and just let his confusion fall away. "I always thought of myself more as a Ralph Bellamy type."

"Ralph Bellamy! When did he ever do any damage? Didn't he always play the sweet husbandly kind of - Oh."

Steve just swung up his shield and smiled. "He was okay, Ralph Bellamy."

"Yeah, he was a good doobie, straight arrow, I could see you working your way up to that." Tony's smile as he flipped his mask back down over his face took the sting out of the sarcasm of his tone as he said through the speakers, "Whatever you want to be when you grow up, Cap, I'm sure you'll make it."

But he also ignited a few thrusters and put himself about ten feet off the ground, up out of Steve's reach.

"And the same to you, Tony," Captain America retorted as he stretched his legs and followed Iron Man back into battle on foot.


End file.
